Dress Codes and Sexism

Oh, and, BTW, yes, I do think dress codes tend to be sexist in design and sexist in enforcement. Overwhelmingly so, everywhere. Which pisses me off, because people ought to be able to wear what they like. It's the responsibility of men to learn how to focus and to be respectful, it's not the responsibility of women to be less distracting and lie low so as not to incur disrespect. How that is not utterly obvious is absolutely beyond me.

 

I think that you're having a knee-jerk reaction to what I posted.

In general, and in the workplace, women wear a far greater variety of clothing styles than do men. If the bits & pieces are covered, that's usually fine. In a very professional work environment, how they're covered also matters.

As for the biology, I stand by my comments. I'm not saying that men have a 'built-in excuse' for behaving like horny dogs. I'm sure that most people who have held office (& teaching) jobs have seen women who intentionally push the proper clothing boundries as far as they can. Some men will be dogs no matter what a woman wears; some women will go to great lengths to draw attentions to their bodies.

I do agree on the clothing choices for girls. The last few times that I've been in department stores it seemed as though all of the casual clothing for girls was revealing. For example, if Target had any modest casual shorts for girls, they were well hidden.

 

Back in gradschool a new front desk worker, maybe 20 years old, came to work for the first time.

She was insanely hot, wore the LOWEST cut top you could wear without getting arrested or looking like you were attending a Hollywood award ceremony and wanted attention. I will confess it was insanely distracting to me. The head of the department (female) made her put on a lab coat an hour or so later.

Part of the double standard in dress code is men have very little leeway in dress. I recently read a guy complaining that now that its warm he is stuck in a suit, while women in the office can dress lighter. If a guy wore something even mildly sexually proactive people would think he was a creeper or flamboyantly gay.

Its sort of like Halloween costumes. Women get "sexy nurse, sexy fireman, sexy nun, sexy homicide victim, etc." Males get "douche-bag sexual innuendo joke, douche-bag toliet joke, douche-bag this, douche-bag that". Or "lame joke this lame joke that"

 

I'm calling bullshit.

Let's say you (in the general sense to cover anyone reading this) build a legal practice that specializes in finance & capital, and you do work for many established financial institutions. Can you honestly say that you would be OK with your employees wearing "what they like" i.e. extremely revealing/OOT sexy in front of important clients who work in a traditionally conservative business? If you had a medical practice? Was the admin at a large clinic? A hospital?

Would you want your employees to dress as though they going beach party? As though they were broke college students?

The above scenarios could be applied to any situation where professional attire would best help your business or career.

FTR, as I previously posted that apparantly got overlooked by some people, the same appropriate dress codes should also apply to equally to men.

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Another FTR--Most of the people I know who are the most critical of how women dress are other women. I do not mean unattractive women who are jealous of atttractive women.

 

Even then women could wear the same outfit without problem. Have a guy show up in nut huggers and see how it goes over.

Men really can't dress provocatively without being obvious about it. Nature gave women boobies, which have been sexually selected for and are a trigger for male sexual interest. Darwin is at fault here.

 

I'm seeing an age divide here.

In my work we have a huge pile of policies that are updated regularly. Sometimes you look at something in a policy, and you say what is this shit. Then you realize that it was written because at some point someone did that. You think dressing or acting appropriately would be obvious, until you have spent a little time in the world, and worked some real jobs. Then you realize there is a significant portion of the population that does not act appropriately. That is why there are dress codes. And laws. And social standards.

If you have to question whether something is appropriate to wear, then it's probably not appropriate. If your clothes sometimes display more than they should in the course of your day to day actions, then they are not appropriate and you need to reconsider your judgment.

 

Perhaps this is why schools take it on themselves to be strict about dress code - in the hopes of teaching kids/young adults about appropriate dress. Possible?

 

Dress codes are only important because people push the boundaries of what is appropriate. That women have more leeway in what to wear is besides the point.

The language used in a dress code simply needs to be gender neutral and fair. It's not that difficult.

 

I believe I already indicated here:

Obviously, when I say that people should be able to wear what they like, I mean that within the context of common sense situational appropriateness.

 

But that's the point. Situational appropriateness is lacking in many situations with many people. How many people know not to murder? And yet we need laws telling people not to. How many people dress appropriately? But then we have had ten years of idiots walking around with their pants below their hips, wearing their baseball caps twisted sideways.

 

There's a big difference between laws needed to provide justice for violence and a dress code.

If an employee of a company consistently dresses inappropriately, they can be fired. But a company should be able to hire sensible and basically intelligent people rather than establishing a long-winded and minutely quibbling policy.

As for students, I agreed that there need to be some few basic guidelines of appropriateness to ensure kids don't come to school liable for indecent exposure or wearing words you can't say on network TV or so forth. But I don't see any reason to try and put too many limits on kids dressing stupidly in school or whatnot.

 

But in order to fire someone you have to create a paper trail, a history of acts. Violations of dress code or employee handbook violations help create that paper trail. So when they sue you, you have evidence to bring to court.

 

You can still be sued.

 

Omega is correct. Dress codes set the rule. Most people's contracts stipulate a process for termination (typically a number of warnings followed by dismissal). The code makes things clear what is permissible.

Some people have common sense, but many don't.

My issue isn't that there is a dress code, but rather how those codes are written and enforced. Clarity, equity and consistency are key.